Dear WPU Community,
Happy spring! I pray you and your families had the opportunity to fully rejoice in the Holy season of Easter this year, experiencing all the hope, renewal and profundity that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ offers to us all. Shemeka and I celebrated with our two sons Asa and Nathan, home from college. Mirroring this spring season, we love to witness their growth from boys to young men, and are truly blessed see them pursuing lives With Purpose.
Likewise, Warner Pacific is blossoming. Have you visited campus lately? Spring is here – visibly in the gorgeous flowering trees and greenery that characterizes our Mt. Tabor hillside, but also in all that the Lord is leading us to accomplish. This month we meet with our Board of Trustees to share the new Strategic Plan that will guide our efforts over the next three years. This has been a nearly year-long pursuit with many hands and hearts contributing. I especially want to thank the committee of staff and faculty that wrestled with, and prayed over, many ways of approaching this challenge. Here are just a few exciting goals we have outlined:
- Opening a new Center for Academic Success and Achievement – or “CASA” that will house tutoring and mentoring support, especially aimed at getting more students to the graduation finish line.
- Bringing a new Baseball program to WPU – starting this fall, be sure to watch for game times and come cheer on your Knights!
- Moving our excellent Nursing program to the WPU campus – our program has been located in leased office space a driving distance away…at long last, we are able to make plans to house it here on our beautiful campus and open pathways for expansion in the future.
- Propelling our With Purpose brand in our community with a new level of visibility – in the form of advertising and public relations, but also through many exciting collaborations with Northwest church families and nonprofits, and Church of God sister universities.
There is much, much more ahead and I’m eager to engage with all of our alums, donors, partners and friends over this work as together with our Board and move to action in the months ahead. For now though, let us reflect on “new mercies every morning” that Spring connotes so beautifully, leading us to walk forward with certainty:
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor spin. Yet I tell you that no even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.” – Matthew 6:28-29
Bless you this spring!
